1. Background and Evolution
Before examining in detail what conventional steel mills—which are generally large-scale operations (producing several million metric tons of steel per year)—are and how they are evolving, it seems useful to explain how and why these so-called conventional mills developed, and then to describe their relative evolution in various parts of the world. Finally, before returning to this topic in greater detail in the last section of this article, it is essential to distinguish between the various types of integrated steel mills that exist today around the world.
Since the beginnings of the steel industry—that is, around 1870–1880 (following the “Iron Age” and then the “Cast Iron Age”)—steel mills have been based on a single, simple layout (Figure
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Background and Evolution